....are all the points inside the object moving at the same velocity?"

That advert is really bugging me. His counterexample of the truck moving round the pivot is wrong because it isn't even moving at a constant velocity. Since velocity involves speed AND direction, not just speed and so traveling in a circle isn''t a constant velocity - it involves constant acceleration. (acceleration being a change in velocity)

So the fact that the objects inside the truck are not moving at the same velocity as each other is totally irrelevant because his first premise (that the object is travelling at a constant velocity) isn't even true

I dont see travelling in a circle as being acceleration since the object is only changing the direction it is travelling - not knowing math, I believe it may be called angular velocity.

Given a central point, objects at the front of the car (facing that point) would move slower than those at the back of the car. I think this is because the radius of the circle would be larger for those at the back of the car and given the same time as those at the front they would need to travel faster in order to make it around the circle at the same time as those at the front of the car.

"An example of a body experiencing acceleration of a uniform magnitude but changing direction is uniform circular motion. In this case, because the direction of the object's motion is constantly changing, being tangential to the circle, the object's velocity also changes, but its speed does not. This acceleration is directed toward the centre of the circle and takes the value:"

Both velocity and acceleration are vectors and acceleration is the change in velocity. So in fact for circular motion (or any other non straight line motion) there are two accelerations.

One is due to the change in the magnitude of the velocity vector and for circular motion that is tangential to the circle.

The other is due to the change in the direction of the velocity vector and is perpendicular to the velocity vector, so for circular motion it points to the circle's centre. This is the centripetal acceleration and for an object moving at constant speed its magnitude is equal to speed**2/radius. This results in a force on the object pointing to the centre of the circle as force=mass*acceleration.

Note that this is not the so called "centrifugal force" that we think we feel pulling us away from the centre of motion when in a car, for example; that is a ficticious force that does not exist. We are tricked into thinking it exists because in our own frame of reference, that being the inside of the car, we are motionless but feel the car under us being accelerated by centripetal force into the circle which we interpret for ourselves inside the car as an acceleration of us (and thus a ficticious "force") in the opposite direction.

It is important to note that if the plane in which the motion takes place is not horizontal gravity has an effect on the motion around the circle.

I knew my physics would come in handy one day (but in fact have also done a bit of this stuff associated with the behaviour of high powered boats :-) )

Byrned: Well, not really caring about whether it is correct or not, I absolutely love this add. I'm sure it's really every blokes way of demonstrating a mathematics principle.

The thing is, if he had actually said ‘speed’ instead of ‘velocity’ then he would have been absolutely correct. But instead the script writer decided to sound more scientific by using velocity, but instead ended up just being plain wrong.

Byrned: Well, not really caring about whether it is correct or not, I absolutely love this add. I'm sure it's really every blokes way of demonstrating a mathematics principle.

The thing is, if he had actually said ‘speed’ instead of ‘velocity’ then he would have been absolutely correct. But instead the script writer decided to sound more scientific by using velocity, but instead ended up just being plain wrong.

Agreed. This is BASIC high school physics, and to get it wrong (IMHO) destroys the credibility of the message they're trying to send - albeit an otherwise valid one. Kind of like having a big fat spelling mistake in the middle of a printed advertisment.

Things are LookingUp.... A photo from my back yard :-)http://www.astrophotogallery.org/u141-rodm.html

Byrned: Well, not really caring about whether it is correct or not, I absolutely love this add. I'm sure it's really every blokes way of demonstrating a mathematics principle.

The thing is, if he had actually said ‘speed’ instead of ‘velocity’ then he would have been absolutely correct. But instead the script writer decided to sound more scientific by using velocity, but instead ended up just being plain wrong.

Agreed. This is BASIC high school physics, and to get it wrong (IMHO) destroys the credibility of the message they're trying to send - albeit an otherwise valid one. Kind of like having a big fat spelling mistake in the middle of a printed advertisment.

Except I doubt the typical buyer of this product would be a high school physics type (excuse the stereotype).

I guess it's a bit like those movies that aren't technically acurate, or the dog that says "bugger" or Toyota's ad with the flying fox - you have to allow for a bit of artistic licence.

Byrned: Well, not really caring about whether it is correct or not, I absolutely love this add. I'm sure it's really every blokes way of demonstrating a mathematics principle.

The thing is, if he had actually said ‘speed’ instead of ‘velocity’ then he would have been absolutely correct. But instead the script writer decided to sound more scientific by using velocity, but instead ended up just being plain wrong.

Agreed. This is BASIC high school physics, and to get it wrong (IMHO) destroys the credibility of the message they're trying to send - albeit an otherwise valid one. Kind of like having a big fat spelling mistake in the middle of a printed advertisment.

Except I doubt the typical buyer of this product would be a high school physics type (excuse the stereotype).

I guess it's a bit like those movies that aren't technically acurate, or the dog that says "bugger" or Toyota's ad with the flying fox - you have to allow for a bit of artistic licence.

Err no - not excusable. The presenter is giving us a physics lesson and GETTING IT WRONG. There is no excuse for that.

Things are LookingUp.... A photo from my back yard :-)http://www.astrophotogallery.org/u141-rodm.html